Another battle
before the month is up. Oh! we are indeed being crushed and chastened! It is a
great comfort in these days when (in New York at least) the people seem
trifling and uncertain, to hear such good, strong confidence expressed as Mr.
Henry James1 said he felt in the people's “coming to self-consciousness,”
as he called it. When I asked him if he thought it would take long to make them
feel that they were the one and only power, and that they must save their
native land, he said: “No, perhaps a day might do it. Some manly act on the
part of a leader might crystallize the men near him.” Everything looks dark and
uncertain ahead, except the pure faith in God and ourselves. However, it isn't
well to be down-hearted in view of the proclamation, — that must work. I was
told yesterday by Lou Schuyler that the negroes in Georgia had quietly refused
to work, sitting calmly with no idea of insurrection, but simply immovable. In
Louisiana (as a lady told Mother who came from there) there is no more slavery,
and with such facts before us how can we say nothing has been accomplished?
Yesterday at the
theatre it didn't sound well when Richelieu2 said: “Take away the
sword,” etc., to hear loud applause, but we comforted ourselves with the reflection
that it was New York and only the upper gallery at that. I suppose waiting is
wholesome and trust that it is as Mr. James said, that “When the people do wake
up and know themselves, we shall have blessed happy peace forever.” We, as a
Nation, are learning splendid lessons of heroism and fortitude through it that
nothing else could teach. All our young men who take their lives in their hands
and go out and battle for the right grow noble and grand in the act, and when
they come back (perhaps only half of those who went) I hope they will find that
the women have grown with them in the long hours of agony. Mr. James brought
Nellie and me today two photographs of Wilkie,3 who had gone off in
the 44th as Sergeant, and on the back was somebody's or something's escutcheon
with the motto, “Vincere vel mori.” It seemed a very fitting one for a young
soldier going forth in all the ardor of a first campaign. Dear boys! How noble
they are, and yet how can they help being noble? I have longed so to go myself
that it seemed unbearable, and Emmie Russell4 wrote me from Florence
that it always made her cry to see soldiers, partly for thinking of our army,
and partly for chagrin that she was not a man to go too. We can work though if
we can't enlist, and we do. It is very pleasant to see how well the girls and
women do work everywhere, sewing meetings, sanitary hospitals and all. Lou
Schuyler told me at the Sanitary yesterday that there were 150,000 sick and
wounded now in the different hospitals to be cared for! and I suppose, poor
fellows, they are cold and tired and miserable, even after all that's been done
for them! God help us all.
_______________
1 The elder of that name.
2 Played at that time by Edwin Booth.
3 Wilkie James, brother of Professor William
James.
4 Afterwards Mrs. Charles L. Pierson, of
Boston.
SOURCE: William
Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell,
p. 35-6
